There’s a very long, very tedious thread going on in Great Debates. In it, pro-life people were asked to explain what penalties should result if abortion were made illegal and a woman still got one.
The majority of the answers said that abortion is murder, but that the women wouldn’t be prosecuted. The abortion providers would be. When asked why the women should be exempt, those people said that there are many crimes where being of a different category of person makes the “crime” no longer “criminal.”
So, one side argues that if it’s murder, the woman is guilty of murder or conspiracy to commit murder just as a mob boss hiring a hitman is guilty.
The other side argues that certain categories of people can do things that are illegal but are exempt from prosecution because of who they are.
Well, one example is the Scott Peterson case. He murdered his wife and wa charged with that but he was also charged with murdering his unborn child. If his wife had gone through a late-term abortion in areas that allow it, she wouldn’t have been charged with anything.
This goes beyond the “woman’s body” argument and allows one parent to terminate a pregnancy while charging the other directly with murder if he terminates the pregancy.
The ways that a man could actually be charged with such a situation would mean that he did other illegal acts to arrive at that point but the direct charge differentiates between parents.
One obvious UK example - until very recently (1991, I think), a husband who raped his wife was immune from prosecution for the rape itself; men in that position had to be charged with the less-serious crime of assault, which required evidence of physical injury.
Occasionally, the owner of a dilapidated house will choose to demolish it by burning, and arrange for firefighters to use the fire for training. As long as the owner doesn’t have a fraudulent gain from the fire, he is not guilty of arson.
Ah, it’s the PURPOSE of the sex that changes.
If I hire myself a $20 crack whore downtown, it’s for my enjoyment.
If I were running an adult film and employed 7 people to engage in various activities with one another on camera for the puprose of producing salable footage, it’s for the enjoyment of my viewing audience. It’s not for the enjoyment of anyone who will be in the film.
Nitpick: In one state I’m aware of, there is also a legal requirement to notify neighbors in advance. Of course, calling the fire department first goes a long way towards that general goal, but consult your attorney prior to torching your own house.
Selling your own child is illegal. Conceiving a child and having the father pay you to terminate your parental rights is questionably legal. This was hashed to death in the Baby M trial–Can the father be charged with buying his own genetic child?
A sixteen year old and a nineteen year old have consensual sex. The nineteen year old is committing a crime (in many jurisdictions) and the sixteen year old is not.
Hmm. Okay, some of these things are close. To be more specific, are there crimes where there is a victim, someone who did not give permission for the act, but one segment of the population is allowed to commit the crime with impunity?
“Robbery is illegal unless X does it.”
“Murder is illegal unless Y does it.”
“Rape is illegal unless Z does it.”
Or even, are there any crimes where you can knowingly hire someone to commit them and they are liable but you are not?
The simple answer re abortion is that the law can be written to make performing an abortion illegal. BTW, AFAIK all current state anti-abortion laws on the books (all there prior to Roe v. Wade, and which would automatically go into effect if the ruling were overturned) have penalties for abortion, but do not call it murder. In order to try doctors for murder for performing an abortion, these laws would have to be changed – not an easy task. It would also be awfully difficult to get a murder conviction for an abortion – too many people in the juror pool would not consider it such.
Of course, then a woman who aborts herself with a coathanger can be prosecuted. Are the pro-“life” people in the debate considering that?
No it doesn’t: it’s precisely the “woman’s body” argument: his wife has the right to decide what to do with the fetus, not the husband.
No, the charge was murder of a person (the unborn child). That charge presumably gives the child rights on its own. It flies in the face of the not a child until born argument.
I wasn’t trying to start an abortion argument (I am pro choice) but the logical contradictions are obvious and do give one parent the right to do what the other could be charged with murder for.
As was stated before by Tevildo, rape was illegal unless a woman’s husband commits it on her. Now, thankfully, that has been disallowed.
Robbery is illegal unless police or agents of the court do it with a warrant, but then I guess it isn’t robbery anymore. Authority figures in different situations are allowed to do it. For example, high school faculty can confiscate material that they deem inappropriate to have at school even if the object is legal for them to own.
Murder is illegal unless police or soldiers do it in appropriate circumstances. Many of these do not fall under self defense or protection of others.
Kidnapping is illegal. But if I put handcuffs on you and lock you in a room pursuant to an arrest warrant, that’s legal – IF I am a police officer. A citizen can arrest you for a felony committed in his presence; a peace officer can arrest you based on a warrant or probable cause.
Murder is illegal. But if I tie you to a gurney and inject a lethal cocktail in your arm pursuant to a death warrant, after a trial and conviction and sentence of death, and I’m an authorized agent of the state, then the act of killing you is legal. If i were John Citizen, and you were seconds away from having that lethal cocktail shot into your arm, and I decided to hurry justice along by shooting you in the head… that would be murder.
Note that these differences are existential, not essential. THat is, what’s illegal is handcuffing someone and locking them in a room without having obtained employment as a police officer and then having followed proper police procedure. The illegal part also deals with actions, not with an immalleable trait of the actor.
However, in examples such as underage drinking or a man entering a woman’s locker room, the illegal part is directly related to an immalleable trait of the actor
This is a good question. Underage drinking, if it has a direct victim, victimizes the actor; while you don’t exclude self-victimization, I think you could fairly do so (since nobody is making abortion illegal to protect the pregnant woman).
The man entering the woman’s locker room is a more interesting case. Most folks would agree that this crime has a victim, inasmuch as it’s violating the women’s reasonable expectations of privacy. Most folks would agree that a woman in a locker room does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy from other women (I’m assuming, of course, a locker room with an open structure). So the way we conceive the crime, there’s only a victim if the actor is male; if the actor is female, no victim, ergo no crime.
This is again different from the case of abortion. If the fetus is a victim when a doctor performs an abortion, it’s equally a victim when a woman performs the abortion on herself. The different traits of the actors don’t change whether there’s a victim.
I think this is a great question; I can’t think of any such crimes.